Ordinary Farm Adventures Books in Order

The Ordinary Farm Adventures is a middle grade collaboration between Tad Williams and Deborah Beale, aimed at readers who like mystery and magic but are not quite ready for Osten Ard level page counts. The books follow siblings Tyler and Lucinda Jenkins on two dangerous summer visits to a very unusual farm.

At the start of The Dragons of Ordinary Farm, the children expect a boring stay with a grumpy great uncle in a lonely California valley. Instead they discover that Ordinary Farm hides dragons in its barns, unicorn herds in the pastures, a flying monkey in the house, and a workforce made up of people pulled out of different eras in history.

Their uncle Gideon is a kind of magical conservationist, rescuing rare and extinct creatures through a time rift called the Fault Line. The farm runs on fragile bargains and secret rules, and Gideon is not the only one who wants control of that power. Billionaire collector Ed Stillman and the witch Mrs. Needle, along with her resentful son Colin, all have their own designs on the place.

In The Secrets of Ordinary Farm, the stakes rise when Gideon disappears and the farm begins to fall apart. New security measures bring in even more dangerous beasts, like manticores and bunyips, while the human residents worry that they will be stranded out of their own times forever. Tyler and Lucinda have to move from being wide eyed visitors to taking real responsibility.

The tone balances wonder and danger. Williams and Beale lean into classic kids adventure beats, with sibling squabbles, midnight explorations, and school style rivalries, but they also let the threats feel real enough to matter. The dragons are beautiful and terrifying, the unicorns can be temperamental, and time travel has costs.

This series page gives you the reading order and a sense of how the Ordinary Farm books connect, so you can decide when to hand them to a young reader or when to take a break from heavier epic fantasy and visit a farm where the livestock breathe fire.